Chapter 57 - Love Song on Ice (14)
Ch57 – Love Song on Ice (14)
In the beginning, Lou Sifan didn’t think too much of it.
He understood He Changsheng’s personality. When given a task, if he said he’d do it, he would do it without taking any shortcuts whatsoever.
Sure enough, come Monday, Dong Ge, who should have gone for training, took sick leave.
After morning training ended, Lou Sifan went to look for He Changsheng, and asked him how Dong Ge was.
He Changsheng was also very surprised. “He took a sick leave?”
Lou Sifan said, “He handed in his sick note and his diagnosis, saying that he twisted his right ankle when he came home on Friday.”
He Changsheng said, “That can’t be right, I took him to practice throw jumps on Saturday.”
Upon hearing this, Lou Sifan immediately knew what must have happened.
He smiled and said, “He’s really too much. What a silly kid, why is he lying about this kind of thing? Did he fall while practicing?”
He Changsheng thought of the youth’s reddened eyes and pale, bloodless lips.
“But I didn’t want anyone to know……”
……Could it be that he had fallen and hurt himself while doing throw jumps?
With regards to something like lying, He Changsheng was no expert. He simply chose to not answer. “I’ll go visit him.”
And to Lou Sifan, that was equivalent to silent validation of what he had said.
He pulled on his clothes. “I’ll go with you.”
When they knocked and entered Dong Ge’s room, Dong Ge was lying on the bed, reading. Upon seeing them enter, he merely gave them a cool nod.
Lou Sifan walked over to the side of his bed. “Dong Ge, we brought you patient food. Is your leg alright?”
He retracted his right leg into the quilt. “It’s fine, just a small injury.”
Lou Sifan said, “You should be more careful. To people in our line of work, the importance of our legs and feet is second only to that of our lives.”
After saying this, he turned to seek He Changsheng’s agreement, “Changsheng, don’t you think so?”
He Changsheng looked at Dong Ge’s face. “……En.”
Lou Sifan reached out to uncover his quilt. “Let qianbei see how serious your injury is.”
His finger brushed against Dong Ge’s little toe poking out of the quilt. With this touch, Dong Ge was so startled that he almost jumped out of bed. His ankle injury was also exposed.
—— This kind of small training injury was indeed nothing to figure skaters who weren’t in competition season. It would be fine after two days of rest.
Seeing this, Lou Sifan couldn’t help but feel a little regretful.
Noticing the change in Dong Ge’s expression, He Changsheng became a little annoyed. “Lou-ge, he’s injured, don’t randomly touch him.”
Lou Sifan immediately apologised with a good attitude. “You’re fine, right?”
Dong Ge was silent.
Lou Sifan laughed silently in his heart.
……It looked like his observation had been correct, Dong Ge was indeed unable to touch others like a normal person.
And now, Dong Ge’s overreaction to his touch further confirmed his speculation.
—— Dong Ge was afraid of this.
Once there was contact, at best, he would feel disgusted, and at worst, it would affect his performance.
The injury on his ankle was irrefutable proof.
This kind of psychological ailment wasn’t easily treated, if he could make use of it before competitions for his own benefit……
From Dong Ge’s point of view, Lou Sifan’s gaze was far too warm.
Chi Xiaochi asked 061, “What kind of rubbish has he come up with now?”
061 looked at his rising regret level. “He’s probably regretting that he hadn’t found your weakness earlier.”
Chi Xiaochi simply and loudly expressed his opinion on this, “Fu……”
061, “……”
Over the past few days, Chi Xiaochi had begun to worry that if he was sharing a body with Dong Ge and didn’t have a door on his mouth, if by any chance he raised a perfectly good iceberg of a little beauty into a little ruffian of society, his sins would truly be great.
So 061, who had recently been awarded the position of school dean, had to begin to take charge of rectifying this problem of his.
061, “……Cough.”
Chi Xiaochi reacted extremely quickly. “Fortune, we’ve made a fortune.”
061 almost couldn’t keep himself from laughing.
But practically at the same time, he felt a slight ripple in the data stream.
……As if someone had laughed.
And that fluctuation was so close, it had to have occurred in Dong Ge’s body.
This fluctuation was extremely slight. Mixed amongst the millions of megabytes of information 061 received every second, it was like an impossibly short illusion.
He of course thought it’d been a misconception.
However, 061 captured a few fragments of data from his vast database.
……It seemed that long ago, when he was serving other hosts, he’d also occasionally receive this kind of message.
But in the sparse, almost to the point of being nonexistent, fragments of data, what he heard wasn’t involuntary laughter, but rather sobs of absolute despair.
Chi Xiaochi of course didn’t receive this signal.
He was currently cooperating with Lou Sifan’s performance.
Lou Sifan said, “It looks like you and Changsheng couldn’t get used to each other after all. From now on, how about having your pair skating practice with me?”
He Changsheng, standing to the side, suddenly cut in. “Lou-ge, didn’t you say that I should be the one guiding him?”
Lou Sifan found this a little strange. He turned and looked at He Changsheng.
Firstly, He Changsheng was feeling guilty for hurting Dong Ge, and secondly, he was sharing Dong Ge’s secret. He of course wouldn’t be willing to hand Dong Ge over to another person. “If we’re not able to get used to each other, we can take it slow. I have more experience with pair skating anyway.”
Lou Sifan actually wasn’t too happy. “This would be troubling you too much.”
He Changsheng said, “I’m his senior, this is what I should do.”
He Changsheng truly wasn’t used to lying. As he spoke, he had his back to Dong Ge and Lou Sifan, his clavicle flushed bright red.
In order to relieve his embarrassment, he began to unpack the patient food in the thermos: Vegetable and meatball soup, dried shrimp with Chinese cabbage and shiitake mushrooms with scallops and stir-fried meat, were all laid out on the table, still piping hot.
His back was to the two people, but his words were to Dong Ge, “Next practice, I’ll be careful.”
In order to play along with Lou Sifan, in He Changsheng’s blind spot, Dong Ge’s expression shifted from “terror”, to “disgust”, to “pair skating is the worst”.
Sure enough, Lou Sifan relaxed his wariness and smiled, “Then I’ll be handing Xiao Dong Ge to you.”
He Changsheng set out the cutlery. “……En.”
Dong Ge was indeed handed over to him.
In his spare time between practice and classes, He Changsheng began coming to the men’s singles practice rink.
He didn’t like playing with his phone. He would just stand by the sidelines, holding his bag while watching practice or sitting and sketching out his dance routine design assignments.
He didn’t know why, but whenever he watched Dong Ge practice, he would always feel especially inspired.
Such a beautiful person standing by the sidelines was a scenery unto itself.
He Changsheng’s reputation as a beauty wasn’t any less than Dong Ge’s. His running off alone to hang out by the sidelines whenever he had any free time really drew the eye.
Someone from women’s singles in the next room heckled, “He-shuaige, whom are you waiting for? If you’re waiting for your girlfriend you should come over here ah.”
He Changsheng put down his pencil and replied straightforwardly, “I’m waiting for Dong Ge.”
Dong Ge, on the rink, faintly heard his own name. He turned and looked towards He Changsheng, wiping off his sweat-damp forehead while he was doing so.
He Changsheng nodded at him, then continued to sketch quietly.
The figure sketched out by the carbon pencil on the paper was subconsciously becoming more and more like Dong Ge.
In the eyes of both those familiar and those unfamiliar with him, He Changsheng would always have that passionate face but was an absolute unromantic. So, when he said he was helping Dong Ge with his training, it really was training.
Even when the two people hugged, it was difficult for others to sense if there were ambiguous feelings, because their conversations were truly far too boring and monotonous.
“Again?”
“Again.”
“You should rest for a bit.”
“Are you tired?”
“I’m fine.”
“Then I’m also fine.”
If one had to say if there was any difference from the past, then it would probably be that the two would always be wearing gloves, one black and one white, one blue and one red, hands entwined.
Both of their hands were slender yet powerful, with slender and delicate fingers. Even with the layer of gloves between them, it didn’t diminish their beauty whatsoever.
Lou Sifan slowly felt like something wasn’t right.
A third person had actually gradually inserted himself between his and He Changsheng’s two-person partnership, and this person’s presence was getting stronger and stronger to the point that he already had no way of ignoring it.
The topics they discussed now included “Dong Ge’s technical moves”, included “Dong Ge’s expressive power in the rink”, and even included “I think Dong Ge really likes this dish”, and “this knee brace isn’t bad, I’ll get one for Dong Ge”.
And his plan hadn’t achieved the expected results.
Dong Ge was still that Dong Ge who kept everyone at a distance of a thousand li, his aura so strong that even the coach subconsciously kept away from him.
If he were to deliberately make a move against Dong Ge under these circumstances, it would seem particularly obvious.
Worst of all, Dong Ge’s shortcoming of having “insufficient coordination” had been fixed by He Changsheng.
One day, he went to the dorms to look for He Changsheng, but after entering his room, he accidentally bumped into Dong Ge, carrying a basin and clad in shorts and a singlet.
Dong Ge was holding an electronic toothbrush in his mouth, so he had no way of opening his mouth to greet him and hence gave him a simple nod, then stretched and walked into the bathroom.
Lou Sifan was incredibly astonished. He stared at his departing back for a moment, then asked He Changsheng, who was currently doing homework, “Why is he here?”
Upon hearing this question, He Changsheng was even more surprised than him, “You’re also here, why can’t he be here?”
……When had Dong Ge become comparable to himself?!
Lou Sifan wanted to say something, but with a turn of his gaze, he was stunned silent.
The bare bedframe in He Changsheng’s room, had unexpectedly gained a set of bedding.
He asked in disbelief, “Changsheng, who moved in?”
Actually, he already had a vague answer in his heart, but he truly didn’t dare to believe it, and couldn’t believe it.
He Changsheng said, “Dong Ge, of course.”
Lou Sifan, “……”
Actually, it was Dong Ge’s dorm room that was going to have a new person moving in. After hearing about it, He Changsheng consulted with Dong Ge, telling him that he might as well move into his own room, since he knew about his problem and would know how to avoid triggering him.
But He Changsheng, thinking about it, had felt that this involved his and Dong Ge’s secret, and hence didn’t intend to explain too much to Lou Sifan.
Lou Sifan felt as if he had been given a few dozen slaps on the face. His cheeks heated up, his head was dizzy, his ears rang. An unprecedented anger poured out of his heart, impossible for him to control. “……Weren’t you unwilling to live with others?”
He Changsheng felt like Lou Sifan’s anger was a little puzzling. He looked up at him and said, “Dong Ge’s different.”
Lou Sifan paced pack and forth, but was completely unable to suppress his anxiety. “How is he different? Hmm?”
He Changsheng said, “Lou-ge, what are you doing? I just chose a roommate.”
Only then did Lou Sifan realise his actions had been a little inappropriate. A basin of cold water poured over his seething emotions, sending up plumes of smoke.
Right, Changsheng didn’t necessarily like men. In his point of view, he had only chosen a roommate.
Thinking about it this way, his anger was truly too unreasonable.
After several tries, Lou Sifan finally managed to suppress his surging wave of emotions. “Sorry, Changsheng, I’m not in a very good mood today.”
He Changsheng, of course, wouldn’t bother himself over such trifles.
He lowered his head and went back to his homework.
Lou Sifan turned to look towards the bathroom, unwillingness, blankness, and an undisguisable jealousy mixing in his eyes.
Meanwhile, in the bathroom, Chi Xiaochi was frantically buying up cards. “Liu-laoshi, hurry hurry hurry, if you don’t hurry up Lou Sifan’s regret value is going to be full.”
061, “……” He’d been a system for so many years, but this was his first time hearing such a new statement.